Now That’s What I Call Weekender, Volume Whatever

Another installment of the usually weekly compilation of tasty tidbits designed to entice you to read Weekender cover-to-cover when it comes out tomorrow — or look up the full articles on MySA, where they’re already posted. (By “usually weekly,” I mean “weekly as long as I remember to do it or remember to tell the MySA folks that’s it’s done.” I forgot to tell them last week, which is why it didn’t appear last week.)

Anyway …

Comedy weekend

Buzzed-about Asian American comedian Jo Koy finishes his Rivercenter Comedy Club run this weekend. This sounds like a hot ticket. His clips on www.jokoy.com are hilarious, and I love the line in his interview with E-N staffer Hector Saldana about the weird compliments he gets when people find out he’s Asian: “Oh, you’re Asian? I love orange chicken.” Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find the clip of his “Tonight Show” performance a year ago that earned a standing ovation.

Koy’s Rivercenter stand kicks off an orgy of A-list comedy. The list includes:

 Robert Schimmel, back at Rivercenter for a two-night stand Jan. 26-27 (we’ll have an update on him next week)

 Jim Gaffigan, at the Empire on Feb. 24

 Jamie Foxx, for a night of music and comedy, March 11 at the AT&T Center.

A couple of comedy notes:

 Schimmel, who has managed to keep his sense of humor despite a litany of personal woes (heart attack, divorce, cancer), made one of my all-time favorite comedy albums, “Comes Clean” (1996; geez, has it been that long ago?). There’s nothing clean about it, of course — Schimmel is legendary for his explicit humor. But he views sex as funny instead of dirty, and he’s often the butt of his own jokes, so the blue humor doesn’t seem forced. Example: One bit from that record deals with his sexual miscalculations, such as bedroom role-playing gone bad (“Have your wife pretend she’s with another guy? Bad idea. Then she does things with him she’d never do with me … and I’m choking her trying to find out who I am”) or trying to apply adult-film techniques at home.

 Before he became a Hollywood star, Jamie Foxx had a habit of coming home to Texas (he’s from Terrell, east of Dallas) around Christmas or New Year’s to do some shows (usually poorly promoted, which always sent us scrambling to catch up). He came to Municipal Auditorium every year from 1994-97. In an interview with the E-N before the first show in 1994, his description of it sounds a lot like what he has planned for the AT&T Center in March:

“On this tour I do mostly comedy, but the audience also gets to hear some of my music … “We call it the Entertainment Show because you’re not just getting comedy, but the music, too. We give ’em not just the appetizer, but the whole meal.

“Music has always been my first love, but I also wanted it all, man. I wanted to sing, dance, act and write songs. So for the past two or three years I always did the music with the comedy because it gave people a little bit more. I always used to like to watch those cats like Sammy Davis Jr. that could do it all.”

Exhibit of the week:

“The Marvelous Hysterical: Threaded Drawings by Bettie Ward,” Southwest School of Art and Craft — When you read file after file of Calendar copy, some phrases just jump out at you. Like this one — “humorously erotic embroideries on vintage linens.” That’s how Ward’s exhibit was described. Alas, the school’s Web site only had one sample of her work, “The Girl Who Had a Relationship with a Spiney Tree of Life Cactus” (see it here). And there were no links for further study. By the way, the opening reception is from 5:30-7:30 tonight.

Golden Globes: The sequel

Earlier this week, I mentioned four Golden Globes nominees were finally opening in San Antonio this week — “Volver,” “The Last King of Scotland,” “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “Letters From Iwo Jima.” Two other films that were all over Monday night’s telecast — “Babel,” which had seven nominations and won motion picture/drama; and “The Queen,” which had three and won for actress/drama (Helen Mirren) and screenplay — have seen their presence in S.A. greatly expanded.

Both opened in San Antonio on Nov. 10. “The Queen,” which has been playing the Bijou and Huebner Oaks theaters, will be on eight screens as of Friday, expanding to the Cielo Vista, Silverado, Live Oak, Palladium, Northwood and Embassy. “Babel,” which has been holding court at Huebner Oaks, will also be at the Live Oak, Embassy, Silverado and Cielo Vista.

Makes you wanna run out and see “The Hitcher,” right?

Speaking of “The Hitcher,” there’s no telling when we’ll be able to determine if it’s awful or merely mediocre. As Larry Ratliff mentioned in his “Aisle Seat” blog, he catches a plane to Utah today (in fact, he’s probably in the air right now) to the Sundance Film Festival. When he gets back, he’ll have Oscar nominations to deal with Tuesday morning and another slate of openings next week. So there may not be time to catch “Hitcher.” Darn.